Paper

Workshop

Strange Splendor (Opera)

This experimental opera was written and directed by me with the help of Operahögskolan students in Stockholm in R1 Old, Nuclear Reactor, which is an experimental performance space now.

What was intended, at first, within this framework of “Forecasting Future Experience of Opera through the Life and Art of Hilma af Klint” is to highlight the emphasized aspect of Hilma af Klint’s “life” which shall <and can> not be regarded differently than that of her “art”; especially if we are here to inspire from. The resource that she derived her inspirations from, quite contrary to contemporary artists meanwhile, was very much of the cult value that was held behind as credulously spiritual realm which did not appear, at all, as a consequence of a will for “showcasing” such artwork; but to have it ‘lived through’ <to quote Bourdieau’s term>, as a reflection of her existing mindset that did not care for exhibiting a work of art, but in contrary; to experience it as a mindset. Endearingly, the realm of that of opera is not at all different than a cult. It not only takes time to digest; it mutates the taste of life of the beholder, turning the everyday collection of daily practices, also the multiple co-existence of artworks, into a cultic worship. In this case, since art and life only reflects upon each other, the future of life was depicted as a prediction including the past and present, the prediction of past and analysis of future, the common cycle of eternal present, by using the form of Opera, at this project.